Philosophy

Over the years of my reading philosophy I've always kept a basic "epistemology of philosophical knowledge" in my head as a way to organize all knowledge. But several difficulties arise:

1. Is it comprehensive, covering all philosophical knowledge?
2. Does it cover all knowledge? If not does it provide hooks to provide or expose a way to organize all knowledge?
3. Is it authoritative or just bull? I just made it up to track everything I've learned.
4. Is it useful or functional?

I've always thought that the world is strictly deterministic and causal. Study physics for ten minutes and it just seems so obvious that for every 'thing' that exists there is a physical counterpart. All the particles in the universe, our thoughts in our brains and if there is a god then it too would have a physical component.

I haven't posted much lately, mostly because I've been busy but also because I've been reading existentialist text and it has completely flipped my understanding of the world on its head. It's as if all of creation was obsessed with the person from the Universe's point of view until Kierkegaard came along and asked what the world was from the Person's point of view. Nevertheless I decided to write down a few thoughts that have been rolling around in my head for some months.

How good is a person's philosophy? Of all the famous philosophers, which had the best work? And how good is my philosophy?

That is the central thesis of my thought lately. If I were to measure each philosopher's work how would I do it? How can I develop a philosophy which is better than the one I have now and how could I prove that it is?

Generally speaking, I find discussion of religion dull and boring. It has to be one of the most unproductive topics when it comes to debate, as a conversion from one belief system to another is rare.

My philosophical studies have finally taken me to their final leg of the journey: the psychological turn. I have spent years understanding the nuances of metaphysics, logic, society and ethics. I have now reached a point where I feel that my understanding of the universe and of people can help me understand myself and to reach of ultimate goal of being happy and content with my own life.

What is your purpose? Do you do anything that's important to society? Do you do anything that's important to you? Think about happiness. What makes you happy? Does happiness just happen to you? I doubt that and what I'm about to propose supports that it does not. If you have ever been happy in your life, and then at some point later you did reach a state of happiness, then happiness didn't just 'happen'. Either someone did something to you or for you, or you did something yourself that lead either directly or indirectly to your happiness.

I have a very specific problem at work: the power engineers refuse to assist me. Well I can't say refuse, more like "only help me begrudgingly and only if they absolutely have to and even then very little." Why? It's their task to work on the power circuits of my boards. And why not? The problems on my board are relatively small compared to other problems (e.g. bugs and such). Well, part of the problem is management, and the other part is time.

It is commonplace between scientists and lay people alike to treat a set of objects as a singular group. For example, if I buy a box of cheerios, I don't say I just purchased 2,000 cheerios. I say I bought a box of cheerios. Simple enough and justified. Similarly, when I refer to the inhabitants of say, India, we just call them Indians. Or a trunk, root system and leaves as a tree. Again, justified. It seems to be natural for humans to group things together and refer to them as one. However, this grouping soon breaks down when used beyond anything but a convenience device.

I am constantly struck by the beauty of California. Up and down the highways the state has placed interesting and unusual flora. It is spring time now and everything has come alive, shooting leaves and branches and stems into the air. Here and there stretches of highway will explode with color as a particular plant blooms. I could count a hundred different plants to and from work... trees, flowers, bushes, shrubs, cactus, etc. Most of which are flowering or soon to. Once leafless and dull, trees have shot out little leaves. It is quite pleasing to see different plants for the first time.